Netscape 7.1 Released

Sunday June 29th, 2003

Netscape Communications Corporation today released its new Netscape 7.1 browser, which is based on Mozilla 1.4. This version — codenamed Buffy during development — offers several new features, including automatic image resizing, which shrinks large images to fit in the browser window, and Find As You Type, a tool that allows users to search for links or text on a webpage just by typing. Tweakers will appreciate the new editable about:config (try setting the boolean general.smoothScroll preference to true to get smooth scrolling) and Windows users can now log in to sites that use NTLM authentication. Bookmarks, tabbed browsing and popup blocking have all been improved and 7.1 should fit in better with your desktop's look-and-feel.

Mail & Newsgroups also has its share of enhancements with junk mail detection, message views, improved filtering capabilities (there's support for multiple actions, newsgroup filters and running filters after the fact) and Address Book Palm synchronisation. Composer hasn't been forgotten, with a 'breadcrumb bar' of HTML elements on the Status Bar and click-and-drag dynamic image and table resizing. In addition, there's improved support for Web standards (such as WSDL proxying), better performance and stability, and several thousand other bug fixes.

As I had expected from my experience with Netscape 6.2, the UI is as fast as Firebird, so you can't go wrong. You must change the preferences, though, as it does things like allowing popups from netscape.com. My major bone is that the navigation bar, etc., can't seem to be edited. I'm now used to my minimalist menu bar on Firebird and this could be a deal-breaker. Otherwise, newbies should try this polished browser.

I imagine it was more the fact that Netscape, while not waiting for 1.4 final to be tested, were waiting for the 1.4 release candidates to happen. They, like Mozilla.org, decided that 1.4RC3 was good enough - and given that, it makes sense that both releases happen at about the same time.

seems they forgot to include the "block images from this server" option in the context menu? The registration dialog also says "NS 7.0" instead of 7.1. Thats what I saw after the first few seconds of use ....

"The Netscape site is not doing much to promote the advantages of this release, I can see any mention of the developer pack on the website, any mention of activex or anything like that."

Netscape doesn't do PR. Or should I say AOL doesn't care about Netscape? Really if they were even remotely interested in getting Netscape out there you'd see some real PR going on. Sadly unlike the barrage of AOL adverts, AOL doesn't push Netscape the slightest bit. I mean their biggest concern as of late was securing the use of IE for AOL for the next 5 years, not promoting Netscape 7.x over Internet Explorer.

I've said this several times now, but where the heck are the deals with oem computer makers? Where is marketing? Why hasn't AOL spent 1/100 of the amount they do hyping AOL? You can't expect to gain market share by sitting around on your bottom, and that's exactly the attitude Netscape/AOL has taken about this browser. I honestly don't even know what AOL is even getting out of the Netscape browser at this point, so maybe that's the real issue.

I'm grateful for Mozilla which Netscape graciously sponsored and paid people to work on, but its plain to anyone who has been following Netscape/Mozilla for the last several years that Netscape/AOL isn't serious about promoting Netscape over Internet Explorer.

For anyone still under the impression that Netscape has a future beyond the few corporate holdout who use it, get that thought out of your mind.

Ok, I dunno where to turn to w. Netscape questions, so here's one. I installed the NIM.xpi on their FTP on my base install, and while ICQ works, AIM doesn't. It logs in fine cuz it shows the right folder names (I've 4 buddy lists), but it shows things like "Misc (0/0)." If I start it from the start menu link, the windows that opens shows it's trying to get something from the net after logging in, but never quite finishes. Maybe it's having problems getting the list?

Please help. Do I need to get the full install or something? I'd rather not do that w. all the other stuff I don't use.

It's still there but as part of the GRE (Gecko Runtime Environment) which is usually to be found in "Program Files\Common Files\mozilla.org\GRE". The GRE version corresponds to the build version you see in the about:box.

I recently convinced my work (all comps OS X) to switch away from IE, thanks to the news that Microsoft will no longer support mac IE and there were some bugs bugging them already. I would like to try to get them to switch to Mozilla/Netscape, but I fear I will not be able to over Safari. Safari is OK being standards compliant, but I wish I could get all those computers running Moz. Mozilla really needs an extended bug-squashing period so they can fix some long standing bugs and release the most stable build ever, it would really help in getting corporations to switch.

Now that firebird is becoming the main focus, will Netscape follow suite?

What's the status of SVG support? The free plugins that are available are still only for earlier versions, AFAIK. SVG support is very important to me and it doesn't seem to be available. See http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Overview.htm8 .

After hours it turned out all I was missing was the link in the netscape/plugins directory.

So all I did was create a link from the Java plugin directory/file:
/usr/local/java/j2re1.4.2/plugin/i386/ns610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so

In to the Netscape plugins directory,
/usr/local/netscape/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so

You can check what Netscape thinks of your operation by going to Help-->About Plug-ins this will give a list of your plugins its found. I had to use the one in /ns610-gcc32/ directory coz the ns4 and ns610 ones just gave me junk.

All that time and all it was was a simple drag and drop operation in KDE. I think Sun and others could have explained the whole process a little easier instread of making a meal of it....

I just installed 7.1 on a Win2K system that had 7.0 for quite a while. Now with an existing IMAP account, I can't create a compose window. I just can a dialog saying that there was an error creating the compose window and to try again. Restarting the browser doesn't seem to help.

I recently crashed my computer and am in the process of re-installing all my applications including Netscape.

When I install Netscape, all goes well and all shortcuts appear on the desktop, pointing to the right folder, however nothing happens when I click on the Netscape icon.

I re-installed a couple of times and verrified the content of the Netscape folder and all seems OK. However, in all instances Netscape deos not want to launch neither from the icon on the desktop nor from the one in the Netscape folder (C:\Program Files\Netscape\Netscape). I also tried to launch the other applications related to Netscape (Mail, Instant Messenger) but got the same result.

I recently crashed my computer and am in the process of re-installing all my applications including Netscape.

When I install Netscape, all goes well and all shortcuts appear on the desktop, pointing to the right folder, however nothing happens when I click on the Netscape icon.

I re-installed a couple of times and verrified the content of the Netscape folder and all seems OK. However, in all instances Netscape deos not want to launch neither from the icon on the desktop nor from the one in the Netscape folder (C:\Program Files\Netscape\Netscape). I also tried to launch the other applications related to Netscape (Mail, Instant Messenger) but got the same result.

I have the same problem as jtouboul on Windows XP. I suspect it may be something to do with upgrading from Windows 98 to XP. Here's the output from filemon (from www.sysinternals.com) when I start netscape.

It seems it is looking for xpcom.dll which is not there. There are also some strange entries to do with Diskeeper lite for some reason.

Well, I thought this could be related to your question (but it is not, see below, I just posted it, and also because the text was already written, when I noticed it), though, I use Mozilla Firefox and not Netscape, but it seems they uses the same "common libraries".

It's just when I inspected some of Mozilla's dlls with Dependancy Walker, for example qfaservices.dll, jar50.dll, jsd3250.dll, inspector.dll (and others, all with "Mozilla Foundation" or only "Mozilla" under "company" in file properties), I noticed, they all have the same unresolved exports (not same C functions, but being dependant of the same dlls), all pointing to NSPR4.DLL, XPCOM.DLL, PLDS4.DLL, PLC4.DLL.

But then, I actually found out, this is only couse Dependancy Walker hasn't got Firefox's search path when monitoring/resolving dependancies (dynamic C exports to separate functions and loking in module’s file header), cause I launched Dependancy Walker (for that particular dll) from "inside" Process Explorer (also application from Sysinternals, like Filemon you monitored with, btw., I just love so many Mark's utilities).

Well, I thought this could be related to your question (but it is not, see below, I just posted it, and also because the text was already written, when I noticed it), though, I use Mozilla Firefox and not Netscape, but it seems they uses the same "common libraries".

It's just when I inspected some of Mozilla's dlls with Dependancy Walker, for example qfaservices.dll, jar50.dll, jsd3250.dll, inspector.dll (and others, all with "Mozilla Foundation" or only "Mozilla" under "company" in file properties), I noticed, they all have the same unresolved exports (not same C functions, but being dependant of the same dlls), all pointing to NSPR4.DLL, XPCOM.DLL, PLDS4.DLL, PLC4.DLL.

But then, I actually found out, this is only couse Dependancy Walker hasn't got Firefox's search path when monitoring/resolving dependancies (dynamic C exports to separate functions and loking in module’s file header), cause I launched Dependancy Walker (for that particular dll) from "inside" Process Explorer (also application from Sysinternals, like Filemon you monitored with, btw., I just love so many Mark's utilities).

I am fresh-registered user, and I also experienced some troubles when posting, probably becouse I am a (only) 56K dial-up adapter user (with only 28.8 or 32.3 Kbps as my actual connection speed, established with ISP), and the request was somehow timed-out (cause of big load on other sites at that time, and therefore big badwidth usage), and I appearantly I applied it twice ...

Well, I thought this could be related to your question (but it is not, see below, I just posted it, and also because the text was already written, when I noticed it), though, I use Mozilla Firefox and not Netscape, but it seems they uses the same "common libraries".

It's just when I inspected some of Mozilla's dlls with Dependancy Walker, for example qfaservices.dll, jar50.dll, jsd3250.dll, inspector.dll (and others, all with "Mozilla Foundation" or only "Mozilla" under "company" in file properties), I noticed, they all have the same unresolved exports (not same C functions, but being dependant of the same dlls), all pointing to NSPR4.DLL, XPCOM.DLL, PLDS4.DLL, PLC4.DLL.

But then, I actually found out, this is only couse Dependancy Walker hasn't got Firefox's search path when monitoring/resolving dependancies (dynamic C exports to separate functions and loking in module’s file header), cause I launched Dependancy Walker (for that particular dll) from "inside" Process Explorer (also application from Sysinternals, like Filemon you monitored with, btw., I just love so many Mark's utilities).